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GENDER, SPACE AND WARFARE IN THE EARLY PLAYS OF
ARISTOPHANES
by
Chiara Sulprizio
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(CLASSICS)
August 2007
Copyright 2007 Chiara Sulprizio

This dissertation examines how Aristophanes articulated and staged gender difference in his five earliest extant comedies, which were produced in succession during the initial period of the Peloponnesian War. These plays present a diachronic picture of the war's destabilizing effect on the Athenian political system and its sex/gender system, which underpinned the democratic state through its regulation of marriage and reproduction. By submitting these plays to a historicized and socio-spatial analysis, I explain why the comic stage became such a potent venue for the conflation of the political and sexual conflicts occurring in Athens during the 420s BCE. I also consider the ideological developments that prompted Aristophanes to foreground the feminine in his later work.; Through his use of geographic imagery and his manipulation of the theatrical space, Aristophanes emphasized the intimate relationship between civic identity and gender identity. In particular, he employed the feminine spaces of the body and the home, or oikos, as metaphorical battlegrounds, where physical and ideological conflicts could be synthesized, scaled down and humorously represented. The depiction of these spaces as contested sites in male struggles for dominance relied upon and reproduced the longstanding discursive association that equated women with property or territory. It was also influenced directly by the belligerent and imperialistic climate in which he produced his works.; Aristophanes' representations of femininity evolved gradually, culminating in his "women's plays" wherein females occupy male-identified civic spaces to achieve social change. Female characters appear sparingly, however, in his earlier comedies, where the settings are largely domestic. As these plays progress, the absence of women becomes increasingly problematic for the male characters: it hinders their efforts to distinguish themselves from one another, and allows the violence and unrest brought on by the war to engulf the safe space of the home. Their denial of the feminine and the oikos as necessary, active elements of Athens' political life thus compromises the plot's successful resolution at times. It also provokes the emergence, at the end of these plays, of female figures who express dissenting or alternate perspectives, and who prefigure the dynamic heroines of Aristophanes' later plays.

GENDER, SPACE AND WARFARE IN THE EARLY PLAYS OF
ARISTOPHANES
by
Chiara Sulprizio
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(CLASSICS)
August 2007
Copyright 2007 Chiara Sulprizio